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About govt getting too big .. the IRS has already "misplaced" $67 million in its fund to "implement" O-care. The program hasn't even started yet, and there is $67 million missing. It has a fund of $1 billion to implement the law. And these are the people who are going to keep track of all the numbers?

G.Clinchy@gmail.com"Know in your heart that all things are possible. We couldn't conceive of a miracle if none ever happened." -Libby Fudim

​I don't use the PM feature, so just email me direct at the address shown above.

Coburn, a fiscal hawk who publishes an annual “Wastebook” report, says the funding bill Congress is currently considering is chock full of head-scratching, taxpayer money-wasting government grants. They include: 35 wine projects, including 10 grants to support wine tasting, radio ads about New Jersey blueberries and funding for Organizing Maple Weekend in Massachusetts, with festivities that include a recipe contest.

Elsewhere," Coburn continued, "just this week the government celebrated Christmas in September by funding numerous Christmas tree projects across the country plus a number of other stupid projects like junkets for Chinese wine connoisseurs and a maple syrup recipe contest.”

In the past, Coburn has come down hard on Congress for agreeing to fund grants from the National Science Foundation that included $516,000 for scientists to develop an eco-ATM that will give out cash in exchange for old cell phones and other electronics as well as another $349,862 for a study that checks out of the effects of meditation and self-reflection for math, science and engineers majors.

NSF spokeswoman Dana Topousis has defended the grants to FoxNews.com in the past, and says Coburn shouldn’t get caught up quirky names of projects but instead try to see beyond it.

She pointed to one project in 1996 called “BackRub,” a search engine research project by Stanford University students Larry Page and Sergey Brin that eventually would go on to become Google.

I'm not sure I believe that there would be no Google if the govt hadn't provided the grant.

If NJ wants to promote its blueberries, why doesn't NJ do that?

I can recall the issue of promoting Christmas trees coming up before. Wonder why the atheists aren't up in arms about that? More and more people are turning to re-usable artificial trees. Isn't that good for the carbon footprint? We could probably use the wood from the trees for something more durable than a decoration that lasts just a couple of weeks ... and ends up as compost. I'd bet some people even burn them ... more carbon! Where are the environmentalists?

G.Clinchy@gmail.com"Know in your heart that all things are possible. We couldn't conceive of a miracle if none ever happened." -Libby Fudim

​I don't use the PM feature, so just email me direct at the address shown above.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013...-pleads-fifth/
Remember this fella? He defrauded taxpayers out of about $1 million by telling the people at the EPA that he was working for the CIA one day a week. He even took 6 mos. off saying he was working for the CIA. And for 8 years of this, nobody ever checked with the CIA.

He's going to pay back $800,000, plus an additional $500,000. Where will he get the $ to pay this? He's also supposed to serve about 3 years in prison. For the $800,000 he stole, that works out to a little bit over $250K a year. Where will he get the $ to pay this amount of money? Maybe he can sell the vacation home in MA (where he stayed when he told his boss he was in Pakistan).

Now he pleads guilty, but also pleads the 5th Amendment. Does it make you wonder how much more he filched that the govt never did find? One question Issa asked was if this fella knew of any other employees running similar scams? Did he share his cleverness with any other people? Or was it someone else who shared this idea with him? It has doesn't say exactly when suspicion occurred, but it's now 13 years since it started. Wonder how much paid leave he got? (like Lois Lerner).

The article mentioned no internal controls to avoid more of this. So, maybe the govt agencies are plain incompetent.

Makes some sense to me that if the EPA could function just fine on this guy's 4-day week, then maybe the EPA doesn't need all its present employees working 5-day weeks? Decrease their budget next year by $800,000, and have them pay more attention to how their employees spend their work weeks? And pay 1/2 of that $ saved to the whistle-blower who points out such fraud.

G.Clinchy@gmail.com"Know in your heart that all things are possible. We couldn't conceive of a miracle if none ever happened." -Libby Fudim

​I don't use the PM feature, so just email me direct at the address shown above.

But one story that will get very little press, even within the state of Illinois, is that the private contractor hired to examine eligibility for the state’s Medicaid recipients, through a program called the Illinois Medicaid Redetermination Project, has found that more than half of Medicaid recipients reviewed to date are not eligible for Medicaid and that another 11 percent should have their benefits changed (which means reduced, or to be removed from Medicaid and re-enrolled in another less generous program.)

Back in 2008, the State Dept spent about $200K on booze. One would accept the fact that some of it was for entertaining, and some of it was gifts. In Sept. 2012 the State Dept spent $180K for booze ... just that month. The total bill for booze for 2012 was $400K. So ... they spent 1/2 their booze money just before the govt shutdown! Does the State Dept have a line item for booze? Maybe it gets lost in the "entertainment" budget, and they couldn't figure out a way to give enough parties in one month?

Even sadder, is that about $500K a year is left behind at TSA checkpoints each year in loose change. Under current law, the TSA gets to keep it for airport security projects. One Congressman proposes that the money be re-directed

The House on Tuesday approved legislation sponsored by Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., that would require the TSA to transfer unclaimed money recovered from airport security checkpoints to nonprofit organizations that operate airport programs in support of the military.

Miller's bill was recently evaluated by the Congressional Budget Office, which said the agency is expected to spend unclaimed money gradually over the next several years.

According to an earlier report in Bloomberg Businessweek, the CBO estimates of the bill said the proposal would cost $1 million to implement.

“I was pretty aggravated that they said it was going to cost money to give money away,” Miller told the magazine.

One might think that a couple of strokes of a computer keyboard could transfer that money to the Dept of Vet Affairs for disbursement once or twice a year to an approved group that benefits our troops or veterans?

Certainly, it shouldn't take more than some such electronic transfer to apply those funds to paying down the deficit? Maybe dump it into Medicare or SS? Just about anything would sound better than buying new uniforms for the TSA.

G.Clinchy@gmail.com"Know in your heart that all things are possible. We couldn't conceive of a miracle if none ever happened." -Libby Fudim

​I don't use the PM feature, so just email me direct at the address shown above.

Your looking at it as money already in the bank. First the agent at the scene would have to collect the money. That would have to be brought presumably to a supervisors office and turned in. The amount collected would have to be logged and saved so that anyone who had the desire to collect it could. They would have to then have to make a deposit and that is going to be a person physically taking it to the bank or an armored truck picking it up. Then after whatever time they hold it for it has to be moved to the proper final account. The TSA already has more invested in this money then it is even worth. Why not let them offset the costs by adding it to their budget?

Ole and Sven are quietly sitting in a boat fishing, chewing and drinking beer when suddenly Sven says, 'I think I'm gonna divorce my wife - she ain't spoke to me in over 2 months.' Ole sips his beer and says, 'Better think it over...women like that are hard to find.'

Your looking at it as money already in the bank. First the agent at the scene would have to collect the money. That would have to be brought presumably to a supervisors office and turned in. The amount collected would have to be logged and saved so that anyone who had the desire to collect it could. They would have to then have to make a deposit and that is going to be a person physically taking it to the bank or an armored truck picking it up. Then after whatever time they hold it for it has to be moved to the proper final account. The TSA already has more invested in this money then it is even worth. Why not let them offset the costs by adding it to their budget?

Ole and Sven are quietly sitting in a boat fishing, chewing and drinking beer when suddenly Sven says, 'I think I'm gonna divorce my wife - she ain't spoke to me in over 2 months.' Ole sips his beer and says, 'Better think it over...women like that are hard to find.'